The View From Here: Christmas hymn of the Tiger Brother

I arrived home last Christmas Eve with an unusually large present under my arm. My parents, expecting the usual DVD-sized box, were delighted.

“That’s not a video game,” they said.

Wei-Ning, my 17-year-old brother, wasn’t as impressed.

“That’s not a video game,” he said, scrunching his face. He had no idea.

Last year, I sabotaged not just a family tradition but the longest friendship I’ve had. Wei-Ning knew my present was neither carefully negotiated nor the right size, but he had no idea what it really meant. In some ways, neither did I, even as I set out to demolish our hard-won holiday gift exchange — the zenith of our brotherhood.

When I was an only child, my parents showered me with video games every Christmas. After Wei-Ning was born, they rationed it out to one per child. What injustice! He never saw the glory days, but I told him all about it — shiny boxes scattered under the tree like candy, Mario and Zelda and Samus all piled together for my vicious enjoyment.

We — well, I — decided something had to be done.

The plan was brilliant. We told our parents that, in an effort to foster a more Confucian bond, we needed to give each other presents too, and since we didn’t have the money, they should give us the extra $60 in early December. Our trump card: “It’s how American families do Christmas.”

Sure, it was a ploy. But gaming defined us. We were, above all else, teammates. Holidays meant waking up at noon to the South Carolina winter sun and sounds of bullets shattering the skulls of Nazi zombies — it was that new “Call of Duty” I got him. I’d run down and join in, and we’d slay until dawn, finally darting into bed and pretending to sleep before our parents woke up. We were happy vampires.

It was all great until my betrayal. When Wei-Ning opened his present last year, he flinched. A wavy-haired, racially ambiguous male youth holding a pencil and book smiled at us: “Princeton’s Review’s 11 Practice Tests for the SAT & PSAT 2013.”

My parents said it was a lousy gift. They got him “Dark Souls II” and an extra controller. But it wasn’t a joke. Maybe graduating from college awakened the Tiger Brother in me, but I asked Wei-Ning if he’d spend winter break studying — you know, instead of throwing away his future.

So, when Wei-Ning’s friends came over to hang out, I’d sit them down for a tutoring session. When my parents came in during our 5-hour afternoon block and asked what movie we should rent, I’d scold them for interrupting.

Our first session ended — timed practice tests, vocab drills — and Wei-Ning let out an exasperated sigh, looking at me like I stole Christmas. “I just wasted so much time,” he seemed to say as he stomped upstairs to boot up the PlayStation 3. I was right behind him.

Chen is arts and entertainment reporter at the Journal & Courier. He can be reached at wchen@jconline.com or on Twitter @weihuanchen.